Next Year in Havana

by Chanel Cleeton

To be Cuban is to be proud—it is both our greatest gift and our biggest curse. We serve no kings, bow no heads, bear our troubles on our backs as though they are nothing at all. There is an art to this, you see. An art to appearing as though everything is effortless, that your world is a gilded one, when the reality is that your knees beneath your silk gown buckle from the weight of it all. We are silk and lace, and beneath them we are steel.

because it’s impossible to stand near the flame consuming everything around you and not have some of that fire catch the hem of your skirt, too.

Loyalty is a complicated thing—where does family fit on the hierarchy? Above or below country? Above or below the natural order of things? Or are we above all else loyal to ourselves, to our hearts, our convictions, the internal voice that guides us?

Can you have a relationship where you exist in half measures, or does the very nature of love demand you throw yourself into it with gusto?

Perhaps I fell in love with him while walking on the Malecón. Or maybe it was at the party, or a few minutes ago when he spoke of his dreams for Cuba. Or maybe this is merely a precursor to love, an emotion singularly difficult to identify by name when you’ve yet to experience it; maybe there are stages to it, like the moment when you wade into the ocean, right before the waves crash over your head. And maybe—

Speaking words gives them an unimaginable power, and we’re full up on horrible things at the moment.

“You speak of passion, but what about companionship, mutual respect, friendship? Why do people always seize on the spark that can peter out as the measure of a relationship?”

“I didn’t necessarily say there were good ones,” Luis clarifies. “Merely men who died before they made the full transition from liberating heroes to tyrants. Men with good intentions, at the very least, which is almost but not quite the same thing. I imagine a number of history’s most notorious offenders started out with the very best intentions.”

I used to stand at the edge of the water and look out at the ocean. You could see all manner of things when you stared into that wide expanse of blue, Marisol. The world felt limitless, as though it was ours for the taking.

That’s the thing about desire—it creeps up on you at the most inconvenient times, too often with the most inconvenient people.

And then there’s the part we don’t speak of—the manner in which our bodies shift with each second, the physical distance between us lessening with each breath. Awareness sparks within me, an electric, tingling feeling of anticipation and longing—that infinitesimal pause before lips touch for the first time, the beat when fingers link, the instant when you’re unwrapping a present and realize it is exactly what you wanted.

We’ve learned not to look toward the future too much. It’s hard to get excited about building things when someone comes behind you and knocks them down again.”

“There are restaurants in Havana my grandmother frequented with her family when she was a little girl. Now only tourists can afford to eat there. We’re guests in our own country. Second-rate citizens because we had the misfortune to be born Cuban.”

You think you know someone, imagine you know them better than anyone, and then little by little, the fabric of their life unravels before your eyes and you realize how little you knew. She was always the constant in my life, and now— It feels a bit like I’ve lost her all over again.

That’s the thing about death—even when you think someone is gone, glimpses of them remain in those they loved and left behind.

You could be good for each other. It might seem impossible now, but trust me, you never know what the future can bring.”

I’ve never felt this instant connection with someone, this sense of recognition, the audible click of two pieces fitting together.

When you’re young, life’s punctuation so often seems final when it’s nothing more than a pause.

“You never know what’s to come. That’s the beauty of life. If everything happened the way we wished, the way we planned, we’d miss out on the best parts, the unexpected pleasures.”

She hugs me, and the familiarity of it is both a balm and salt in an open wound.

“We can’t always know the people we love as well as we think we do, Marisol. Our love is tangled up in our expectations, our perception of reality. And you never know what people really think. They often keep their deepest emotions locked away. She kept her secrets close, but considering what we lived through, who could blame her?”